Emotions
by LesMisLoony
Summary: After releasing the Persian on Christine's request, Erik is pensive. Rated for unexpected slashiness. Yes, slashiness by me.


A/N- This is an idea I've been working on for some time. I'm sure my characterization of Erik is off, but it's worth a shot.

Disclaimer- Written under the influence of insanity and a bet. I don't own the characters.

* * *

Christine's face was pale. She was attempting to hide it from me by covering it with her long, beautiful fingers, by looking away from the man prostrate on the couch. How silly of her, thinking to hide her face from me! I, who have so much practice at hiding my face! And as if she could hide the way she felt—nay, the way she could no longer feel—for this boy. I had taken daroga out as I had promised, and now I returned for the viscount. I lifted him into my arms and began to leave the room.

"Erik?"

The pain in this timid sound stopped me. I did not turn, for I was certain she would be looking, not at my masked face, but at the body in my arms. I waited for her to continue. 'Be careful with him,' she would say, or 'Make sure someone finds him.' Still, after everything, she thought only of this boy.

"Erik," she said again.

I waited, braced for the meek little blow that would certainly cut into my shriveled, disfigured heart.

"Thank you."

I felt myself drowned in a wave of emotions. My knees quivered, and I quickly removed the boy and myself from the room. I placed him on the floor—gently, for I knew it would please her—and I explored these overwhelming feelings. I was glad—nay, I was giddy—for at long last, Christine was mine! And alive! A living wife... I could be just as a normal human, if not in the streets, then at home. I felt my mind wandering to a forbidden place and quickly turned my thoughts away from lust. What else did I feel? Gratitude. She was giving me a chance, and soon she would forget the boy at my feet and only think of me.

But I felt something else as well... something unexpected. I felt pain. But why? I had everything I could have ever wished for—I had Christine! She was everything I had ever dreamed of. I had wanted her since I had first come to her in song through the mirror, and now she was mine! My little wife! How the very idea overpowered me!

Yet the pain was still there. And then I realized the truth! It was not my pain I felt; it was hers. She would be miserable. She did not love me, and never would. Her heart was with this viscount, this boy at my feet. I crouched and examined his silent figure. I had tied a rag over his mouth doused with Mazenderan perfume; he was as oblivious as death.

The viscount represented everything I had ever wanted, and everything I had ever loathed. Christine loved him. I supposed she loved him because he had this beautiful face, because he had money. This silly boy, so full of pompous ideas of love and glory, was completely at my power. I thought of the lake. He would have drowned before he even recovered his consciousness. It would be painless...

Yet I remembered Christine, her wide blue eyes and pale face framed with a curtain of shimmering yellow hair, watching his sleep. There was a tenderness and adoration in that sweet vision as she saw this man, exactly what I was seeing now.

I removed the rag and looked at his mouth.

He had said that he had loved Christine since they had met when they were children. She had kissed his cheek once after he had saved some scarf of hers from the sea.

The parallels of the story rose from the depths of my mind and surprised me. He had saved her scarf from being lost at the ocean—I would now save her beloved viscount from drowning in my lake, or returning to the ocean (was he not a sailor?) and drowning at sea. Certainly, to save a life was more than to save a scarf. I would gain Christine's favor in this way.

I lifted the boy again and took him to the raft, lying him down carefully again, to please Christine. He would not return to the ocean, and he would not go to the bottom of the lake. I would take him to a place I knew, a place where he could be safe, and I would take care of him as I took care of Christine. I reached the other side of the lake and I looked at his pale face. Christine loved this face. I could hardly understand it. I stooped and brushed several strands of blond hair from his eyes, but seeing my own white, skeletal hand by his rosy lips made me pull away. The blasted boy.

I lifted him again, carrying him along my passages until I reached the Communists' dungeon, where I fixed the old, rusting chains about his wrists. The feel of a limp body in my hands was not unfamiliar, but knowing that this life was completely under my power was somewhat intoxicating. I removed my mask and shook him by the shoulders.

"Look at me!" I cried. "See me! See this face, this corpse, this monster which has won your Christine! Your riches, your looks, your young age, all of it was in vain! Now you are in my hands, aren't you? You, beautiful boy, you can do nothing against me! You can do nothing for your Christine!"

As I shook him his head rolled back and forth as one dead. I touched his cheek with my own hand.

"You do not pull back, Monsieur le Vicomte!" I continued. "You do not shudder, or look away from this face!" I leaned closer, closer, until his eyelashes moved under my breath. "See how near you are to Death!"

I thought to strike him, my helpless foe, but somehow, my hand slowed on its journey and I simply touched his face again. It was not often that I could lay my hand on another's flesh and not have them squirm in anxious misery. And here was the fairest boy I had ever seen, unaware that his face was this close to mine.

I could have killed him, and he would never have been in pain. I could have returned and told Christine that he was free, gone, sailing the ocean again. She would not weep in my presence. She would not know that this fine boy was lying in a forgotten dungeon, his skeleton chained to the wall as rats fed on his corpse.

But I did not kill him. His helplessness seemed to overpower me, and moved my face even closer to his. Surely, at this intimate distance my ugliness would wake him, he would shrink away, too horrified to scream.

He did not.

And then there was no more space between us. I pressed my mouth against his lips.

To this day I am not sure why I did it, but I do not regret it. It is the only time in my life I have ever kissed another living being on the mouth.

I felt a strange sort of shivering thrill run the length of my body, and I kissed him again. When I pulled away, however, I thought I saw his eyes move under their closed lids, and I brought the soaked rag from my pocket and stuffed it into his mouth. My hand lingered by his face, but I imagined him waking and I turned and fled the dungeon.

My wife was waiting for me.


End file.
